The England and Wales Cricket Board will meet players' representatives this week to head off a revolt over plans to introduce a quota system in next season's championship and Friends Provident Trophy. It wants to increase the number of younger, England-qualified players and plans cash incentives for clubs who field two players under 22 and three more under 26. A county can pick up as much as £200,000 by 2013 if they comply with the board's incentives. But some are concerned about its impact on experienced players as well as standards. Vikram Solanki, the chairman of the Professional Cricketers' Association, said: "There are good cricketing reasons to suggest this will not help English cricket."

"It seems artificial to force this upon counties. If young players are good enough, they will play anyway. But if you force them in too early, you may damage their development and cause resentment in the dressing room. We've seen the damaging effect of quotas elsewhere. Young players can learn a great deal by being around experienced players. This system will also make it much harder for late developers, such as Michael Hussey and Marcus North."

Sean Morris, the chief executive of the PCA, said last night: "Players are concerned that this may not be in the best interests of English domestic cricket. We all understand the logic and rationale behind it and we all want a winning England team. But we also want the best product possible in domestic cricket and we don't want it made uncompetitive or distorted by a quota system."

Players argue that it is already more difficult for non-qualified players to appear in county cricket because of changes made regarding work permits in the winter. An ECB spokesman said: "We are disappointed by Vikram's comments because we have consulted widely and the PCA chief executive [Morris] is a member of the ECB's executive committee.

A spokesman for Friends Provident said: "This is an issue for the ECB to decide upon."